the bus stop on courtenay place knows your secrets & supermarket cigarettes

Penelope Scarborough

the bus stop on courtenay place knows your secrets 

it watches girls pop the nights like pills 

new world wine oh so cheap & delicious 

hates the way kids drop night ‘n day vapes 

down the back of the benches 

like their disposability might make the cancer less permanent feel the way the trees here are hungry for wind 

skeletal veins always scratching the night 

but it’s late now – the roads are empty 

the kind of night that sits rotting on your skin 

when you’re wide awake and your lover is not 

the dark swallows each unnamed body 

& for a moment you forget where you are 

– but it knows you’re there by the bus shelter bathroom passed out eyes rolling up to the dopamine of moon & stars hollow heads lolling unbalanced against bus poles and all the dead mosquitos floating around you 

don’t say a word 

don’t try to wake you  

so it doesn’t either. 

The walk home through Cuba will be lonely 

the moon presses its fingers into your cheeks 

and tells you to stay cold. 

you take your sweater off to feel the rain on your back and wonder if the others 

will still be here 

in the morning 

supermarket cigarettes 

I had a dream about you smoking in the supermarket you threw an apple at my chest and it 

split down the middle before 

hitting the tiles 

looked like my heart fell out my rib cage 

and rolled toward your feet 

you laughed & stubbed your cigarette into it 

The bottles in aisle three were singing out 

But you reminded me, you don’t drink 

so we stole paper cups and let muddy water leak in from the ceiling pretend-pouring wine for a forgotten anniversary 

You set fire to the checkout before dark 

stolen nicotine-patches melting into your skin 

then threw me the matches 

told me to light a candle 

so you could watch it all burn down beside me 

I woke up wondering why 

we never call this love 

but for now I’ll fall asleep in your arms again 

you’ll take the batteries from the smoke alarm 

so I can dream of you and I 

in another supermarket 

warm and grey, older and sober